About the Author
Corey is the owner and President/CEO of Voltage. He has spent 18 years working in strategic and leadership roles focused on growing national and local client brands with award-winning, ROI-generating digital strategies. He's a recent recipient of the KCDMA 2019 Marketer of the Year award.
Many businesses focus solely on digital marketing tactics like SEO, PPC, and social media without considering external factors that may be limiting their return on investment (ROI). While optimizing digital campaigns is essential, offline elements such as branding, customer service, and operational efficiency can significantly impact digital marketing success.
In my article for Search Engine Journal, I explore several key non-digital factors that can either enhance or hinder digital marketing performance. Below is a preview of some of the most critical elements. For a complete analysis, check out the full article.
Key Non-Digital Factors That Affect Digital Marketing ROI:
1. Have a Defined Brand Strategy
Even the best digital marketing strategy will struggle if a brand doesn’t have a defined or clear brand strategy that everyone in the business can leverage. The benefits and uses from a defined brand strategy include:
- Ensure consistent messaging across all digital marketing channels–including SEO.
- Leveraging unique content and messaging to support value proposition and differentiators.
- Using content and the search and website experience to set up sales opportunities for success.
2. Customer Service & Sales Experience
Digital marketing can generate leads, but there can be gaps and reasons why leads don’t qualify or close hurting SEO ROI. Benefits of having alignment between SEO and the customer service and sales functions include:
- Real-time feedback on lead quality, reasons why leads aren’t converting, and the ability to adjust content and messaging.
- UX improvements that can be made related to page experience and other factors in the customer journey.
- Align customer service policies with marketing promises to ensure consistency.
3. Pricing & Product Availability
Even the most well-optimized SEO campaigns won’t drive revenue if pricing is uncompetitive or products are frequently out of stock. Open communication and collaboration between product/customer service functions and SEO will allow for:
- Research of market pricing to stay competitive.
- Maintain inventory accuracy to prevent lost sales or to be able to shift toward/away from inventory and product issues.
- Be able to differentiate from competitors and not have to compete on price alone.
Other Non-Digital Factors Impacting Digital ROI
In addition to the above, my full article explores other challenges that can reduce digital marketing effectiveness, such as:
- Definition and research into true online competitors, even if not the same as encountered in brick and mortar or other channels.
- Ability to shape content and decisions upstream from SEO to help create efficiencies in assets and marketing overall.
- Development of research and SEO thinking into branding, product development, sales, and customer service.
When these non-digital elements are ignored, businesses may see high levels of investment of time and dollars but low conversions, leading to wasted marketing budgets.
Final Thoughts & Full Article Link
Optimizing digital marketing is important, but it must be supported by strong branding, effective customer service, and operational efficiency. By addressing these non-digital factors, businesses can improve their marketing ROI and create a better experience for their customers.
For a deeper look into all the non-digital factors that impact digital marketing success, read the full article on Search Engine Journal:
🔗 Non-Digital Marketing Factors That Hurt Digital Marketing ROI